When you create content, you’re writing for an audience. As we all do, members of your audience have problems. Can you describe four of their biggest challenges?
For example, on this blog, I often create content for freelance writers, who have many challenges, including:
Discover content ideas here.
I’ve been reading Harriet Steel’s period mysteries, the Nuala novels, set in 1930s Ceylon. Ms Steel assembles a wonderful cast of characters, including pets.
Currently there are 11 novels in the series, so at the start of each novel, there’s a cast list. It’s ideal to refresh your memory on who’s who, if you’ve forgotten who the characters might be.
Why not make a list of the main characters in your current novel? A list helps you to decide whether you have characters who are too similar, or who don’t suit the genre—it’s always good to try and suit your characters to the genre in which you’re writing.
Here are the main tips from our meeting.
But what if you want to sell via your website?
Let’s look at what’s involved in ecommerce.
Basically, you need:
The simplest way to sell something on a website is to use PayPal, or a similar payment system. You describe a product, and add PayPal button. When someone buys, you ship the product.
Although this bare-bones method is simple, it becomes challenging when sales increase.
Let’s look at some tips to help you to make sales from your WordPress blog.
According to Influencer Marketing Hub’s PDF:
We estimate the total Creator Economy market size to be around $104.2 Billion
Also from the PDF:
Of the surveyed Creators that considered themselves full time Creators, ie. content creation is their main source of income – 78% make more than $23,500 annually
Of course, since we’re a writers’ group, our members are heavily into self-publishing, blogging, and social media. It seems we’re part of a movement too.
Write a story, and publish it: all on the same day
You can write a short story in a few hours, create a cover, then upload it to Amazon and other ebook retailers…
And you can often sell your short fiction for the same price you sell full-length novels.
Discover…
Here's Quick Fiction Fix: write a short story today.
In Get Paid To Write: “What’s It Worth?” Charge According To Value, I mentioned that:
… when I looked at the weird and wonderful things I could write… names, titles, and slogans… I didn’t charge for them; I’d start thinking aloud, my listener would grab an idea, and hey presto—they received a valuable service for free.
You can create your own writing jobs when you spot solutions.
In our new program, Weird, Wonderful (And Easy) Ways To Increase Your Writing Income Today, we look at FAST ways to increase your writing income. Not by writing more, or by getting more clients.
It’s by paying attention to ideas. All writers are ideas people. Many writers (sadly) stifle those ideas.
Discover how to do more to create your own writing jobs.
Beyond autobiographies and memoirs, perhaps you’re considering writing another form of nonfiction.
You may be:
Of course, you also need to decide where and how you’ll publish your book. Your book ghostwriter can make suggestions, and give assistance with publishing as well as writing.
Several new members have joined our group in the past year. They’re eager to get started with fiction, the “right” way. Not only are they eager for writing tips, they want to know about the complexities of publishing.
We decided that the most important tip is just to write stories. As a new author, you don’t know which stories you have to tell: you need to write them.
Much as I love pantsing short stories and novels, there are challenges if you’re new to writing fiction. You can end up with a story which isn’t a story at all. Or, you can end up with a mishmash: trying to cram three or five stories into one.
For beginning fiction authors.
n 2020, I wrote “Writing Fiction: An Essentials Checklist For Your Novel”. My writing students found it useful, as did blog readers.
Here’s the checklist:
3: Contrast your characters: each character must be different
5: Alternate your storylines (you need at least two)
Learn more about the expanded fiction checklist.
To view a Collection, choose from the Scrivener menu, View/ Collections.
Let’s look at some tips.
You can do this via a Saved Search, or manually. I prefer to do it manually. It gives you more control. Let’s say you’re writing a first draft, or are editing. Select a document in the Binder, right click on it, and from the right-click menu, choose Add to Collection/ New Collection. I like to create a icon for the documents in a Collection too. Then I can spot them at a glance in the Drafts folder. To add an icon to a document, select it, right click, and choose Change Icon. Pick an icon you’ll use for every document in that particular Collection.
More on using Scrivener's Collections.
Here’s an essential tip: writing comes first. Schedule writing time into your calendar each day, and be aware that only writing is writing: research isn’t writing, nor is organizing and cross-referencing your files.
Apps can help you to manage the chaos.
I use Obsidian to organize my writing. If you do too, try this: create a separate vault for fiction projects; it’s less distracting. You can keep both your primary vault and your fiction vault open, and use Obsidian URLs to link them together as needed.
More tips to develop a process for writing fiction.
When you’re reading, before you start editing, think about your BIG scenes: the essential scenes. A novel may have five big scenes—scenes you can’t avoid, because if you avoid them, the reader will feel cheated.
In a romance, the meeting between the hero and heroine is a big scene; in a whodunit, you may drop clues or red herrings in big scenes.
Turning point scenes are big scenes too. The climax is your biggest scene; everything in your novel needs to build toward it.
How to build your editing strategy.
Did you know that your blog can help you to write your books?
Here’s how:
If you’re wondering why I’m removing these courses, time’s the big factor, because the courses include coaching. I’ve just accepted a great commission for fiction ghostwriting: not only a mystery series, but also two serials. Moreover, I’m working on several new professional writing courses, so there aren’t enough hours in the day.
Not only will you enjoy these courses, they’ll help you avoid pitfalls and make money sooner. They’re all tried and tested by working writers.
Here they are:
Here’s a quick writing tip: if you’re writing fiction, start by deciding how many words your novel, novella, or serial needs. For efficient writing, deciding on a word count eliminates many uncertainties.
As you may know, I mentor authors. Last week, an author contacted me about her romantic mystery. After writing a few thousand words, she was ready to give up.
When I asked about her final word count, she wasn’t sure. So I suggested she start with that. Word count matters; it helps with characters, plotting, and the structure of your fiction.
Discover word counts for popular genres.
I'm a professional copywriter, writing teacher, author and tech journalist.
Recent Comments